


axiomatic

by grainjew



Series: stared at the sun and the sun smiled back and called itself pirate king (or: loyalty, on the high seas) [6]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Loyalty, but so little for when hes begging mihawk to train him, he loves his captain so much.... theyre both so good, i am Here to fix that discrepancy. applaud me., theres so much thriller bark zoro loyalty fic out there, zoro.... is good. a dumb idiot also but hes trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 20:25:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15081047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Reflections on Zoro's devotion.





	axiomatic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingwish/gifts).



> connie fallingwish fixed SO many things about this fic before i posted it. thanks connie ilu
> 
> also i wrote half of this in january, forgot about it for six months, and then finished it on a whim in a couple of hours. so thats just the life i lead i guess.

 

_i’m begging you… teach me the way of the sword!_

 

It was the second time that Zoro had thrown away his pride like so much garbage and lowered his head for his captain, and it stung no less this time than the last. He hoped that it would continue to sting at him like that every time such an action was required of him. Without his pride he was worthless as a swordsman. It was good, to have a reminder of the lengths he would go for Luffy.

 

 _i’m disappointed in you, roronoa zoro.  
_ _you mean to ask for teachings from your enemy?_

 

Zoro knew his duty, and he knew his guilt.

 

 _know your shame._  
_leave this place; i have no further interest in you.  
_ _it would seem that the expectations i held of you were too high._

 

Luffy would be King, and one bowed before one’s sovereign. That was just the way of things. It didn’t matter much that Luffy technically wasn’t King yet, because Zoro figured that he was as good as, ever since Zoro had sworn himself to him on a small dinghy outside the Baratie. It didn’t matter, also, that if Zoro had his way Luffy would never know about either instance in which Zoro felt it appropriate to lower his head. In the future, likely, there would be ample opportunity to bow in a manner that would not cause his captain undue distress. For all that Luffy would never order it, preferring as he did his crew watching his back as opposed to kneeling in front of him—

There were some things that just needed to be done.

 

_must you continue? it pains me to watch._

_i want to become strong!_

 

A captain’s orders were the only law a pirate respected — Luffy's orders the only law a Straw Hat respected. That he asserted his authority so rarely they essentially ran lawless across the Sunny only emphasized the need for obedience in those rare moments, only brought the sharpness of command into perspective and lent it an extra urgency. At least, that was how Zoro saw it.

He had never intended on taking orders from anyone, let alone a man with a price on his head, but he learned almost instantly that Luffy revelled in unpredictability, lived for impossibility, and would be dissuaded never.

 

 _defeated by those baboons, unable to even escape to sea.  
_ _and even after all that, you have the nerve to come crawling back here._

 

Zoro had never been good at knowing how to get where he was going. Destination had always been an unreachable point on the horizon, clear and sharp and just as far away as before, no matter how he strove towards it.

But then his captain took him by the hand and showed him wonders, blackmailed and cajoled and charmed him towards a destination that Luffy was so sure of that the particularities of getting there somehow stopped mattering. Luffy moved towards Raftel, and Zoro moved as directed by the Eternal Pose that had embedded itself in his hands and his head and his heart, towards Luffy.

 

_i have nothing to teach to the likes of you._

 

Last time, Zoro had thrown away his pride and begged to die in his captain’s place. This time, he was sacrificing much more than that. He was no Luffy, to see death coming and smile in genuine regretless contentment, but to die so that the crew would live was a simple ending compared to the humiliation of training under the man he dreamed to defeat.  

 

 _the baboons, i have defeated!_  
_yours is the only head i have yet to take.  
_ _but i am not foolish enough to believe that i have any hope of defeating you here and now!_

 

Zoro, in a dusty courtyard, covered in the sweat and grime of weeks in the open, newly possessed of a pushy runt of a captain who claimed a dream more grand than even Zoro’s.

“If you do something that ends up in the way of my goal, I will have you cut your stomach open to say sorry!”

Somewhere along the way, through seas and storms and desperate battles, that promise had fallen by the wayside. Zoro could find no room in his heart to regret it — he only hoped that his captain would understand.

Luffy had no time for those who broke their oaths and threw their lives away, after all.

 

_i do not understand. if you still consider me an enemy…_

 

Luffy walked into Zoro’s life and upended it into a raging current that had Zoro coughing and struggling and re-learning how to swim.

Luffy came, and drew Zoro to him with all the fierce inevitability of gravity, all the startling brightness of a star in motion.

Luffy called Zoro his own, his swordsman, his his his, without even waiting for Zoro to answer, gave Zoro a captain to follow and a place to come home to.

And so, without even realizing until it was too late, Zoro slipped with a sort of quiet, urgent ease into living for him.

 

_then why would you prostrate yourself before me and ask for my teachings?_

 

Luffy’s will was simple, and direct, and straightforward. From the very beginning, from Luffy in a cage of steel and Zoro injured by Buggy’s subterfuge, Zoro could glean a command from a glance or a word, no matter how absurd or impossible, and find a way to fulfill it. The logic behind what might seem ridiculous — save our enemy as I drown, do not fight back against this crew we could destroy in an instant, slice this train in half, keep yourself from my side for two more years — would become clear eventually, but logic had never really been a concern of Zoro’s in the first place.

What mattered was that his captain’s will be completed, reason be damned.

 

_what purpose does this serve!?_

 

What Luffy ordered, what Luffy requested or desired or suggested, Zoro would unfailingly make real.

 

_so that i may surpass you!_

 

Luffy would be King. Zoro followed after him.

 

 _you ask me to raise the swordsman who will take my life by my own hands?_  
_you are a strange one for sure!_  
_a ridiculous notion._ _your actions are nonetheless quite unsightly.  
__it would seem you have found a greater cause than your own ambition._

 

Luffy was King of the Pirates. The World’s Greatest Swordsman followed after him.

And those were the axioms upon which the world turned.

 

**Author's Note:**

> u ever think about how zoro is mr manliest strong manly man and yet his most climactic and powerful moments are almost never when he wins a fight but instead when he submits, lets his pride go, and lowers his head for someone else.... im so emotions about zoro constantly
> 
> also yeah i was going to put the above comment in the author's notes originally and forgot so now im belatedly editing it in bc Its Important, Folks, Zoro's Devotion Is So Important
> 
> hmu on tumblr or twitter @grainjew to talk about FRIENDSHIP, or LOYALTY, or SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY !!!!


End file.
